from Victoria-Weather
2:50PM: It’s hot, and starting to dry out out west. Because this time of year is the time most shortly following the rainy season, it’s not a particularly high time, climatologically, for wildfires. Having the dry heat now, though, doesn’t help down the road.
8:17PM: There is a cold front taunting the hot the sun baked southwest, lined up from northern Idaho to southwest Oregon bringing showers to the Pacific Northwest.
10:52PM The short term forecast isn’t changing. The long term forecast isn’t changing. Above normal temps for a lot of the country (except New England) but that doesn’t necessarily mean “hot” weather. It’s a cool 43, for example, already in Hastings, NE.
11:48PM: I’ll get into it a bit more later, but the SPC has made changes to the site. Like I said, more on the more significant changes soon, but also, there is an updated color palette for the maps, and I am into it.
Spring officially kicked off yesterday. Spring is a season of transition, and because of that, is a season of big weather stories. Indeed, this week started with a snowstorm in the Great Lakes, and a couple of severe weather days in the Eastern US, and now the unseasonable heat is the story for everyone.
Well…. Maybe not EVERYONE. Yes, those are winter weather advisories in New England, where snow is falling, and the heat wave has not made it’s way in. That is quite the contrast. The 300mb jet seems to suggest a particular bone to pick with Maine.
While it does seem a little bit cruel to keep just one corner of the country out of the fun, it does serve as a reminder that this little breach in the jet is allowing snow making conditions into a country that is otherwise experiencing record breaking heat.
This isn’t summer time yet. Cold air is just across the border. This is why we will probably see a few more big weather days before spring gives way.
3:27PM: Well, happy spring. It’s extraordinarily warm out west, but still quite brisk in the northeast. If you have been around meteorology enough, you know what that means!
Today is the first day of Spring, and we will be springing these forecasts on you over the next several days.
Road Trip from Ames, Iowa to Farmington, New Mexico
Visalia, California
Baltimore, Maryland
Road Trip from Baltimore to Parkersburg, West Virginia
Fayetteville, North Carolina
It’s not often we embrace March Madness because you can watch indoors, where the air conditioning is.
At 153PM, PT, Madera was reporting a temperature of 83 degrees with clear skies. The heat dome remains in place over the West, though the peak of the heat was inland, the ridge aloft isn’t going to be moving for the foreseeable future.
There area a couple of features moving through a trough under the Gulf of Alaska, and they are generating Clippers riding the Canadian border. There may be a bit of fresh air over Madera, but no substantial changes to the atmosphere, though Sunday will be a few degrees cooler.
Tomorrow- Sunny, High 87, Low 60
Sunday – Wispy clouds, High 82, Low 57
TWC: Tomorrow – Partly cloudy. Near record high temperatures. High 88, Low 58
Sunday – Generally sunny despite a few afternoon clouds. Near record high temperatures High 85, Low 53
AW: Tomorrow – Partly sunny and very warm High 84, Low 59
Sunday – Very warm with plenty of sunshine High 79, Low 54
NWS: Tomorrow – Partly sunny, High 89, Low 59
Sunday – Sunny, High 83, Low 54
WB: Tomorrow – Mostly sunny. High 84, Low 62
Sunday – Sunny High 82, Low 57
WN: Tomorrow – Partly Cloudy, High 89, Low 59
Sunday – Mostly cloudy, High 83, Low 54
CL: Tomorrow – Mostly Cloudy, High 86, Low 56
Sunday – Sunny, High 83, Low 51
A couple of warm days ahead. Probably more than that. Satellite offers no relief.
10:19PM: The heat is on, with record breaking warmth across the west. The NWS has a discussion covering this heat wave that is valid through the weekend.
11:48PM. Spring!
10:33PM: Absolutely, we aren’t going to be worrying about snow in Appalachia like we saw in the Great Lakes over the last couple of days, or like we saw on the East Coast last month, but I’m here to tell you, wind knows no bound by temperature of latitude.
One thing that comes up every year, it seems, and one thing that I write about every single year, is the amount of variability that a single forecast can hold. If you live in the Great Lakes, it feels like there was a particularly significant tornado event, though the SPC had a Marginal Outlook that day. And it was a marginal event. There was one storm that had one track. Terribly, it tracked through three towns and caused damage and heart break and loss of life along the way.
In Minneapolis, there was a significant snow storm over the weekend. There were forecasts that called for nearly two feet of snow as a possibility in the metro and throughout western Wisconsin. There were accumulations of that high degree, but they were about 30 miles southeast of Minneapolis. It was a slog, to be sure, but not the one that had been feared originally.
This time, though, I want to tie it back to a couple of other trending headlines. Artificial Intelligence and the current administration. Artificial Intelligence has been around for a while. The big change is a revolution in computational power. Meteorologists have used numerical models for decades, now, and they have been aided by computers since that time. They work by reducing the time it takes to navigate the numbers ingested into the models. Increasing compute abilities makes the models run faster, and without the same server load.
The increased ability to compute these models has allowed private enterprise, and increasingly, private citizens to develop their own models, based on smaller territories, or focused on specific metrics derived from the model guidance. There are any number of WRF models for specific locations out there now. It takes a lot less to crank one of these models out, for the same reason that AI is exploding nowadays: Faster computers.
But the problem with models is the same as it has always been. They are only as good as the data that is ingested to generate them. More or less ,this is the problem with AI and the large language models that are so popular. Real time data is collected hourly from airports and other sensor sites. Upper air data is collected in the weather balloons sent from WFO office, of which there aren’t really THAT many. And they are sent up fewer times a day. And now, actually, even fewer than before thanks to government cutbacks.
There is a larger point that could be made about AI and it’s future impact (that it’s only as good as the user and data ingested), but instead, I’ll make a point that I make annually. The forecast will always get you close to what will transpire perfectly, however there is always going to be some inaccuracy, related to the resolution of the models. It then is on us, the consumer to monitor weather that is ongoing, and to know your local geography.
Man, if I write this every year, maybe I should just ChatGPT it next year?
10:31PM: The snow is done in the Twin Cities, though the wind has arrived. While totals were not as dramatic in the Cities as the most dire forecasts, residents of Red Wing, Lake City and other towns in southeast Minnesota can attest that the storm still packed plenty of punch, with 20″ reported around those communities. It’s higher in central Wisconsin. But back to the Twin Cities. The tie ups go to show that getting much over 8″ is all the same. The 13″ I got here were plenty